[Inaudible—Editor]
Evidence of meeting #118 for Natural Resources in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was efficiency.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #118 for Natural Resources in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was efficiency.
A recording is available from Parliament.
11:40 a.m.
A voice
[Inaudible—Editor]
11:40 a.m.
Voices
Oh, oh!
11:40 a.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Efficiency One
Yes, that's right. I could use a coach or a personal trainer.
Businesses and institutions are much the same. As Amelia said, they have such a long list of priorities of where they can spend their money and their time. Often, they just don't have the information to know where to start. The programs and services we offer are more than just financial incentives. They're also about education and trying to build capacity in the market with contractors so that they can educate homeowners and businesses about the economic return that's there from energy efficiency.
11:45 a.m.
NDP
Richard Cannings NDP South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC
Okay.
Mr. Finet, 90% of your work is with the government side of things. What is the uptake there like? It's a lot of your business. How much needs to be done with government buildings, or how much could be done by you or other providers in terms of retrofitting?
11:45 a.m.
Vice-President, Energy Services Association of Canada
I can't tell you about the potential, exactly, but I can tell you that we intervene in a lot of army bases, for instance, at RCMP headquarters, and at research facilities everywhere across Canada. It's limited to your building stock in your case, but the system can be extrapolated to the commercial sector. Again, the payback period is....
11:45 a.m.
NDP
Richard Cannings NDP South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC
Do you have any idea of what percentage or what the future is of that work just within government buildings? Does your group do any analysis along that line, i.e., how much needs to be done or what the federal government could be doing more?
November 8th, 2018 / 11:45 a.m.
Vice-President, Energy Services Association of Canada
We've been talking a lot with the people from NRCan, having workshops together and so on. According to what we've been told, the federal government wants to undertake deep retrofits from now on and not skim the savings. It makes sense, because once you skim the savings, then your next project will have a much longer payback period. We're envisioning longer payback periods to address these and are focusing on greenhouse gas emission reduction measures.
So yes, there is a lot more investment to be done. If we do around $300 million a year, the potential is way more than that, because we are only scratching the surface yet of what we could do.
11:45 a.m.
Kent Hehr Calgary Centre, Lib.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Witnesses, thank you for your presentations.
I was struck by the conversation between Mr. MacDonald and Mr. Falk. I want to follow up on that.
This is in terms of getting the businesses the information they need, through your programs and the like, in regard to making energy efficiency a priority. In your view, would the businesses even know how to go about doing those retrofits and these energy-efficient things if you guys weren't there? People know what they know and businesses know what they know. Are you guys providing the bridge, in terms of the gap in the information system, that businesses need?
11:45 a.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Efficiency One
I believe we are. I believe that extends to the entire energy-efficiency industry in our province, and it would be the same in all provinces. If you're the owner of a small business, as I said, you have so many competing priorities. Energy efficiency is an area that often falls to the bottom of your list.
One of the things we can do and the industry can do is help paint the picture of the business case that exists for energy efficiency. That information gap is a critical, critical piece.
11:45 a.m.
Calgary Centre, Lib.
How have you guys been reaching out to the marketplace and getting your services known to them?
11:45 a.m.
Director, Customer Experience and Partnerships, Efficiency One
We do it in a lot of ways. Partnerships are extremely important to us. We have a team of what we call our business development managers who are out meeting face to face and building relationships with larger businesses. We also have a lot of marketing that we do to small businesses. We do a lot of work with associations, with the folks like the Canadian Home Builders' Association, you name it.
One of the things we have found that works well in the business world is word of mouth. Of course, small businesses are notoriously really hard to get in front of because they are so busy. We use a lot of case studies and success stories in the hopes.... We've seen that one business owner who has had a good experience with us will tell 10 of their business owner friends to give us a call. That's been a really successful way that we've been able to reach business owners.
11:50 a.m.
Calgary Centre, Lib.
I have a more general question.
When we look at Canada and compare it to the rest of the world in terms of policies of both carrots and sticks and developing more energy-efficient means, are we measuring up? Are there nations you could point to that are better examples?
What more should we be doing on the policy front to make things move in a fashion that is more carbon neutral or uses less carbon?
11:50 a.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Efficiency One
There are various studies that are done that rank different countries. I think Canada is somewhere in the middle of the pack, but I wouldn't want to try to quote a specific study.
There are things that Canada can do from a policy perspective. One of the things that the federal government can do is lead on building codes and standards around high performance homes and buildings.
On the residential side, passive house technology is a technology that I believe originated in Saskatchewan. It became very popular and common in Germany. It's a whole home envelope that's very tight with very low energy usage. In Germany.... You can find videos on YouTube of these homes being heated by hair dryers. They are very common.
One of the things government can do is lead on trying to advance standards like the passive house. Net zero home is also a leading standard that government can play a role in pushing forward. There are lots of opportunities.
11:50 a.m.
Calgary Centre, Lib.
I know we haven't touched on that, but our government is putting a price on pollution. Do you guys feel that will lead to more efficient businesses?
Do you generally see the world heading in this direction, that the world is going to be demanding lower carbon options and businesses to be run this way and their products, in fact, to be headed in this direction, whether here at home or whether we're trading with partners over the seas?
11:50 a.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Efficiency One
Certainly one of the ways that any business can mitigate the effects of the price on carbon is to become more energy efficient in terms of their energy usage. Whenever any business, whether it's a small business or a heavy industrial user, becomes more energy efficient, they become more productive and more competitive.
That improves Canada's productivity. That improves the competitiveness of the business. If they are paying a price on carbon, they're using less energy through energy efficiency, and that's certainly it's one of the tools that they can use to help mitigate against the price on carbon.
11:50 a.m.
Calgary Centre, Lib.
Mr. Finet, you were discussing some of those policy options around the building code. In fact, if people purchased a building that had been long overdue, they would have to bring it up to modern codes. Would you recommend that be a policy we put in the national building code here?
11:50 a.m.
Vice-President, Energy Services Association of Canada
No. I think it's more of a municipal responsibility. I don't think it's feasible for the federal government.
I've been participating in standing committees involving national energy codes and so on. I think this is great work by the Canadian government and the provinces together to develop and keep developing these model energy codes and so on. I think the implementation is more for the provincial and municipal jurisdictions.
11:50 a.m.
Calgary Centre, Lib.
Are we seeing new technologies evolve that allow for even more energy efficiencies to be had? Should government play more of a role in incenting those incubators, those types of technologies, that are coming to the surface? Can you point us to other jurisdictions that may be doing that better?
11:50 a.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Efficiency One
I look to my colleague here.
I don't know if I can pinpoint a specific jurisdiction that is doing that better, but part of the role governments can and do play around incentives is around providing incentives for new technologies. When I spoke earlier about where we focus our efforts for incentives, the technology that we incent today is not the technology that we incented five years ago, because we're trying to incent new technologies. Government can play many roles. One is providing funding to fill gaps for efficiency programs, as I mentioned, in the industrial sector. It can provide funding for innovation or tax credits for new technologies in the energy-efficiency sphere.
I guess the one area that I haven't spoken a great deal about is the role that government can play in helping to build industry capacity and skills capacity. We need skilled workers. We need people who are fluent in energy-efficiency practices, and that goes all the way to auditors, architects, designers, engineers. We need a workforce to be able to implement all of this energy efficiency. That's a role the federal government can play.
11:55 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal James Maloney
I'm going to have to stop you there, Mr. MacDonald. Thanks.
We have about three minutes.
Ms. Stubbs and Jamie, I understand you—
11:55 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal James Maloney
I want to stop a few minutes early so we're not late in the next hour.
11:55 a.m.
Conservative
Shannon Stubbs Conservative Lakeland, AB
Okay, thanks, Mr. Chair.
Thanks to all of the witnesses for being here today.
Stephen, I noted that you said one of the biggest opportunities would be in the non-residential sphere, and I was very glad to hear you mention the opportunity in natural gas. It is a particular challenge in Nova Scotia, though, so I have a question for you about those details.
I think it makes good sense for you to say that, of course, because the majority of life-cycle emissions come from tailpipes, and 28% of emissions come from the transportation sector, and I think another 6% beyond that from coal-fired electricity, clearly, transitioning diesel and gasoline-fuelled vehicles to natural gas, and also electricity generation to natural gas is a huge opportunity and a no-brainer for Canada, with almost limitless natural gas supplies.
I am concerned in Nova Scotia's case, in particular, with the decommissioning of offshore natural gas development. Within the next two years, I think supplies there are supposed to end. Of course, the barriers to Nova Scotia's shale gas and other conventional gas opportunities are precisely government policy and legislation. I know there are potentials for LNG opportunities out of Nova Scotia. There are some estimates that it would help reduce the costs for Nova Scotia consumers if Nova Scotia is put into a position where there's a lack of local generation of natural gas instead of having to be brought through a pipeline from western Canada, from the United States.... I think an incentive to develop natural gas and adopt natural gas would be obviously removing high fuel taxes off of natural gas.
I wonder if you could expand on what you meant by that and what sort of opportunities you see there.
11:55 a.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Efficiency One
There was a lot there. I'm going to speak about the Nova Scotia experience.
Our work and our expertise is on energy efficiency and reducing energy usage. In Nova Scotia, primary sources of energy usage come from home and building heating and cooling, which is a mix of electricity. In our province, about half of our electricity is generated from coal and the other half is a mixture of wind, a bit of hydro—soon to be more—some natural gas and some mix of oil or whatnot. The rest of the energy usage in home and building heating and cooling is primarily oil, a bit of wood, some natural gas predominantly in the Halifax area through our natural gas provider, and I think we have a couple of industrial facilities that may also have access to natural gas.
When we speak to customers, they want to talk to us about reducing all of their energy costs and all of their energy usage. I spoke about some of the gaps earlier. When we go to an industrial facility, if they're using a mix of natural gas for either their building heating and cooling or their industrial processes, or a mix of electricity or a mix of oil, currently we're only able to help them reduce their electricity usage. In many of our industrial facilities, that electricity usage is in industrial processes, if you will, but for building heating and cooling, they're using a mix of oil, sometimes natural gas.